Over the course of his 20-year film career, Adam Sandler has made a lot of raunchy movies that his kids can’t see. So when the opportunity arose for him to produce and star in an animated flick, he sunk his teeth right into it.

In fact, Sandler’s prime motivation for playing Count Dracula in the PG-rated “Hotel Transylvania” was getting the chance to entertain his daughters Sadie, 6 and Sunny, 4.

“I wanted to make a movie,” he says, “that the kids can see and just have a good time at.”

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Sandler’s daughters are likely to approve of seeing their Pop play a bloodsucker who divides his time between managing a hotel for ghouls and doting on his 118-year-old offspring Mavis (Selena Gomez). Everything is running smoothly for Drac until a human backpacker (Andy Samberg) checks into the hotel and falls hard for Mavis.

Even though the movie is a comedy, some of the themes struck surprisingly close to home for the 46-year-old Sandler.

“A big part of the movie is a father and daughter relationship and having to let go a little bit,” he says. “It breaks your heart to see a dad struggling with that ... That’s just something very close to me. And my kids are very young but I feel it coming. I feel it coming.”

For her part, Gomez says she can relate to having a Dad who’s a smidge over-protective.

“I just turned 20 and I still live at home, by my choice, and it’s good,” she says. “But we’ve had our ups and downs. And I’m still kind of dealing with it.”

Since “Hotel Transylvania” was produced by Sandler’s company Happy Madison, he had a hand in overseeing some of the casting choices. It was Sandler’s idea, for instance, to give the role of Mavis to Gomez, who’s best known for starring in the Disney Channel’s “Wizards of Waverly Place.”

“It was fun to be her dad and just amazingly exciting to be in the car with my kids and say Selena’s playing Mavis in the movie,” says Sandler, who’s been married to actress Jackie Titone since 2003.

“My kids were, like, ‘No way! Can we meet her?’ You say Selena’s name to my kids and my kids’ friends and they just stop in their tracks and listen to everything you have to say. They’re, like, ‘What was she wearing? What’s she like?’ She’s an icon to the children.

“So, it’s a big deal that Selena is in the movie for all of us because we get to tell our kids that we know her. It made my family tighter, believe me.”

Sandler was also responsible for suggesting a mini-”Saturday Night Live” reunion by enlisting former members of the show, including Samberg, David Spade, Jon Lovitz and Molly Shannon.

“Look, those guys are great,” says Sandler, who starred on the show for five seasons. “I just like being around them. They’re great at what they do. They’re the funniest people I know so that’s why I like doing movies with them.”

The cast is rounded out by frequent Sandler collaborators Steve Buscemi and Kevin James as well as Fran Drescher, who voices the Bride of Frankenstein. Ironically, for an actress who’s known for her nasal honk of a voice, she hasn’t done many animated films.

“(Director Gennady Tartakovsky) wouldn’t let me be as sweet as I wanted to be,” notes Drescher. “He wanted me to sound obnoxious and annoying. All the time he said, ‘Be angrier!’

Long before he found fame on “Saturday Night Live” — and graduated to hit movies like “Billy Madison,” “Waterboy,” “Don’t Mess With the Zohan” and “Grown Ups” — Sandler was a huge animation fan. Growing up in New Hampshire, the comedian remembers his folks taking him to see all of the Disney classics.

“‘Dumbo’ was the first one I saw and I really locked into it, “he recalls. “Of course, ‘Bambi’ killed me as a kid. And I liked all the sweet ones, too. But ‘Dumbo’ and ‘Bambi’ — those were the big ones for me.”

“When I did ‘Eight Crazy Nights’ with (longtime pal Allen) Covert and a few of my other friends, it was more old style,” he says of the low-key flick. “It was pre-‘Shrek’ or something. It was a real low-budget one. And that was fun. But what these guys do (on ‘Hotel Transylvania’) — it just looks a lot nicer.”

Sandler says he didn’t have to work too hard to find the right voice for Dracula.

“It was a very scary process,” he teases. “I went through many choices in the car driving to the first session. And then, ultimately, I said, ‘I’ll just do a little twist on the Zohan’. And that was about it.”

In truth, Sandler worked harder than he lets on. He showed up at many of the sessions of his co-stars, and helped Gomez get in touch with her inner vampire.

“It was hard at times because it’s hard to act only with your voice,” says Gomez. “It’s unusual for me because I’m new to it. But Adam was there almost every recording I did. It was nice to have his support.”

To hear Sandler tell it, his toughest assignment was not cracking up when Samberg let loose with his own brand of funny business.

“Andy’s character is one of my favorite guys in the movie,” says Sandler. “No one could have done it as good as Andy. I couldn’t believe how funny he was. He was on ‘Saturday Night Live’ at the time and was doing read-throughs and stuff like that for us.

“I was choking (back the laughter). It took me six to seven takes to get it right. He always nailed it right away.”